Music education and mental health of music students

Abstract

The existing findings point to peculiarities of personality traits of the musically gifted. These traits can be viewed as the result of acquisition and modelling of certain forms of behaviour, reactions and feelings in accordance with the conditions and demands of the educational and professional context. The aim of this paper is to explore whether the students of the Faculty of Music (FOM) are different from the students of other faculties in the prominence of anxiety and depressive symptoms and early maladaptive schemas. Anxiety symptoms were measured by the Spielberger?s Test Anxiety Inventory - Trait (STAI-T), depressive symptoms by Beck?s Depression Inventory (BDI), while the presence of early maladaptive schemas was determined by the score on the shorter form of Young?s questionnaire that measures the presence of 15 schemas. The sample included 176 students, 48,9% of whom came from the FOM, and 51,1% from other Belgrade faculties. Descriptive analysis and multivariate analysis of variance indicate that both the anxiety (F(1,176)=6,40; p<0,01) and depressive symptoms (F(1,176)=10,15; p<0,01), as well as early maladaptive schemas (F(15,158)=3,02; p<0,001) are more prominent in FOM students. Statistically significant differences are found for ten schemas, and using a Bonferroni adjusted alpha level of 0,003 a significant difference is found for four schemas: social isolation, dependence, entitlement and insufficient self-control. It can be concluded that music students are different from the students of other faculties in that they have more prominent anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as more prominent maladaptive schemas. The obtained differences, i.e. higher vulnerability in musicians, are discussed in the context of the teaching process and the professional demands imposed upon them.